‘Substandard’ NHS maternity care may have caused the deaths of 21 babies, a damning report has found. An independent inquiry has revealed that the unexplained deaths, which occurred during labour or childbirth, could have been caused by delivery delays and inadequate resuscitation attempts.

The investigation into 15 hospitals in the West Midlands also found staff were failing to properly monitor patients and report problems.

Campaigners said the poor standards of care were ‘unforgivable’ and were part of a ‘pattern’ which is being repeated across Britain.

Janet Scott, research manager at baby death charity Sands, said: ‘Healthy babies should not die in labour. ‘These are not babies who were ill or born too soon. These are babies who started labour healthy and died because of failures in the care they received. ‘Unfortunately, these failures are not one-off blunders, but patterns of poor care that are seen repeatedly across the UK.’

A panel made up of senior midwives, obstetricians and other maternity experts looked into the unexplained deaths of 25 babies between April 1, 2008, and March 31, 2009. It found that twelve of the babies may have died as a result of delivery delays, while the deaths of seven others could have been caused by inadequate resuscitation attempts.

The report looked at 16 stillbirths and nine ‘early neonatal’ deaths, which occur from 34 weeks gestation, in the time frame, and excluded all cases of babies with congenital anomalies.

It concluded that in 16 of the cases, the babies were likely to have died because they received inadequate care, while in 21 of the cases different care ‘might have made a difference to the outcome’. The report also listed 16 cases where staff failed to interpret heart readings correctly and so did not identify potential problems in labour.

The panel also found mothers who lost babies were offered ‘substandard’ support and bereavement care in seven of the cases.

Before the inquiry, which was carried out by the West Midlands Perinatal Institute, the hospitals involved had only identified a quarter of the significant failings in the cases.

NHS West Midlands, which deals with 70,000 deliveries per year, said it would learn lessons from the inquiry.

But Mrs Scott added: ‘From the perspective of parents this is unforgivable as every parent needs to know that their baby’s death has been investigated with the utmost rigour, and that when something has gone wrong changes are made in hospital systems to ensure it cannot happen again. ‘Depressingly, the same poor levels of care have been identified in previous national reports over the last 10 years. Why aren’t lessons being learned and babies’ lives being saved?’

Fay Baillie, from NHS West Midlands, said: ‘The report is really disappointing. It has identified that there have been babies that have died in the West Midlands for whom we as health professionals could have provided better treatment. ‘It is not something that we should underestimate in terms of an emotional response to it, and it is something we must improve upon.’

Gisela Stuart, MP for Edgbaston in Birmingham, West Midlands, a former parliamentary under-secretary of state for health, called the inquiry findings `tragic’ and said she had requested a Government debate on maternity services.

Almost three-quarters of pregnant women have not been vaccinated against swine flu, the Health Secretary has admitted. Andrew Lansley said although the number of expectant mothers who have received the seasonal flu injection had almost doubled compared to last winter, more than 70 per cent remain unprotected.

Critics say the axing of the annual flu jab advertising campaign left mothers-to-be confused about whether they qualified for protection on the NHS. Awareness is increasing, but many surgeries are running out of jabs and pharmacies are refusing to give it to pregnant women.

Official figures show just 27 per cent of pregnant women have been vaccinated, compared to more than 40 per cent of asthmatics and other under-65s at risk of severe illness. More than 70 per cent of pensioners have opted for the jab.

Changes to the immune system make pregnant women more likely to catch swine flu and to suffer pneumonia and other complications. Their unborn baby is also at risk.

The decision to add pregnant women to the ‘at-risk’ groups entitled to an NHS vaccination was made early last year, but was not made the focus of an advertising campaign.

Labour health spokesman John Healey said in a letter to Mr Lansley that there was public confusion over who the at-risk groups were and who was entitled to a free jab.

He asked why the Health Secretary didn’t ensure more effort was made early to reassure pregnant women the vaccine was safe and important, and why he axed the autumn advertising campaign.

Frances Day-Stirk, of the Royal College of Midwives, said it seemed women were not made aware of the jab’s benefits early enough.

Mr Lansley said the decision on who to vaccinate was made by scientific advisers independently of ministers and that a mass advertising campaign on swine flu vaccination would have been ‘wastefully focused’ on the entire population, when only certain groups were eligible for a free jab. He added: ‘GPs have been inviting those in at-risk groups to receive the flu vaccine since October and the lack of an advertising campaign this year has had no discernible impact on the uptake of flu vaccine.’

A Department of Health spokesman said: ‘At every stage, we have been guided by the advice of independent experts.’

Flu has claimed 112 lives this winter, with swine flu blamed for most. Senior doctors have warned that the NHS is in ‘gridlock’.

John Heyworth, of the College of Emergency Medicine, said: ‘We have seen A&Es overwhelmed, with people queuing on trolleys and long delays even for those admitted to intensive care.’

The Health Department spokesman said the NHS was better prepared than ever to deal with flu and that the number of intensive care beds taken up by flu patients was falling.

Beauty and brains DO go together! Study claims good-looking men and women have higher IQs

Another of the many positive correlates of IQ

Handsome men and women often appear to be blessed with lucky lives. Now research has shown they are cleverer than most people as well. Studies in Britain and America have found they have IQs 14 points above average. The findings dispel the myth of the dumb blondes or good-looking men not being very bright.

It appears that those already physically blessed attract partners who are not just good looking but brainy too, according to research by the London School of Economics. The children of these couples will tend to inherit both qualities, building a genetic link over successive generations between them.

LSE researcher Satoshi Kanazawa told the Sunday Times: ”Physical attractiveness is significantly positively associated with general intelligence, both with and without controls for social class, body size and health. ‘The association between attractiveness and general intelligence is also stronger among men than among women.’

In other research on social standing, he found that middle-class girls tended to have higher IQs than their working- class counterparts.

Among the millions of examples of beauty and brains, there’s supermodel Lily Cole who went to Cambridge University, actress Kate Beckinsale, an Oxford graduate, and physicist Brian Cox, one-time keyboard player with D:ream.

In Britain, the study found that men who are physically attractive had IQs an average 13.6 points above the norm while women were about 11.4 points higher.

Kanazawa’s findings were based on the National Child Development Study which followed 17,419 people since their birth in a single week in March, 1958. Throughout their childhood up to early adulthood, they were given a series of tests for academic progress, intelligence and marked on appearance.

The American research was taken from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health which involved a similar study of 35,000 young Americans.

Kanazawa, whose paper was published in the academic journal Intelligence, said: ‘Our contention that beautiful people are more intelligent is purely scientific. It is not a prescription for how to treat or judge others.’

A psychotherapist who tried to convert a gay man to become heterosexual faces being struck off at a landmark disciplinary hearing this week. The case will expose the growing use of hugely controversial therapies, from the United States, which attempt to make homosexual men heterosexual.

The therapy has been described by the leading professional psychotherapy body as “absurd”, while the Royal College of Psychiatrists said “so-called treatments of homosexuality” allow prejudice to flourish.

A small group of counsellors believe all men are born heterosexual but that some choose a homosexual lifestyle which can then be changed through counselling.

Lesley Pilkington, 60, a psychotherapist for 20 years, faces being stripped of her accreditation to the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) after treating a patient who had told her he wanted to be “cured” of his homosexuality.

The patient was in fact a prominent homosexual rights campaigner and journalist, who secretly recorded two sessions with Mrs Pilkington, a devout Christian, before reporting her to the BACP.

Mrs Pilkington says her method of therapy – Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE) – is legitimate and effective. The therapy is practised by a handful of psychotherapists in Britain.

Mrs Pilkington, whose 29-year-old son is homosexual, said she was motivated by a desire to help others. “He [my son] is heterosexual. He just has a homosexual problem,” she said last week.

Mrs Pilkington has accused Patrick Strudwick, the award-winning journalist who secretly taped her, of entrapment. On the tape, Mr Strudwick asks Mrs Pilkington if she views homosexuality as “a mental illness, an addiction or an antireligious phenomenon”. She replies: “It is all of that.”

Mr Strudwick told The Sunday Telegraph: “Entering into therapy with somebody who thinks I am sick … is the singularly most chilling experience of my life.” He added: “If a black person goes to a GP and says I want skin bleaching treatment, that does not put the onus on the practitioner to deliver the demands of the patient. It puts the onus on the health care practitioner to behave responsibly.”

Mr Strudwick approached Mrs Pilkington at a largely Christian conference — run by the US organisation The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality — where he said he was unhappy with his homosexual lifestyle and that he “wanted to leave it”. He then requested “treatment for his same-sex attraction”.

In May 2009, Mr Strudwick attended a therapy session at Mrs Pilkington’s private practice, based at her home in Chorleywood, Herts, and recorded the session on a tape machine strapped to his stomach.

In the disciplinary letter sent to Mrs Pilkington, she is accused by BACP of “praying to God to heal him [Strudwick] of his homosexuality”. She is also accused of having an “agenda that homosexuality is wrong and that gay people can change and that you allegedly attempted to inflict these views on him”.

Mrs Pilkington told The Sunday Telegraph: “He told me he was looking for a treatment for being gay. He said he was depressed and unhappy and would I give him some therapy.

“I told him I only work using a Christian biblical framework and he said that was exactly what he wanted.”

She estimates that in the past decade she has offered the SOCE method to about one patient a year, lasting typically about a year. “We don’t use the word ‘cure’ because it makes it [homosexuality] sound like a disease. We are helping people move out of that lifestyle because they are depressed and unhappy.

“We say everybody is heterosexual but some people have a homosexual problem. Nobody is born gay. It is environmental; it is in the upbringing.”

The SOCE method involves behavioural, psychoanalytical and religious techniques. Homosexual men are sent on weekends away with heterosexual men to “encourage their masculinity” and “in time to develop healthy relationships with women”, said Mrs Pilkington.

She said she became involved “in this lifestyle treatment” because of her son. “I am not in this because I am judging people. I am in it because I understand what the issues are.

“I have been able to help my son. We have gone through a process in my family. I want to help others who are in a similar place.

“[My son] is still gay … we are developing a relationship that was quite difficult for many years but is now coming back in a very nice way. I am confident he will come through this and he will resolve his issues and that he will change.”

Her legal defence is being funded by the Christian Legal Centre (CLC), which has instructed Paul Diamond, a leading religious rights barrister, to fight the case.

Andrea Minichiello Williams, the director of the CLC, said: “It is shocking that Lesley was targeted, lied to and misrepresented by this homosexual activist and even worse that her professional body consider her actions worthy of investigation.

“Therapy should remain freely available for those who wish to change their homosexual behaviour.”

The Royal College of Psychiatrists issued a policy statement last year condemning conversion therapies. It stated: “There is no sound scientific evidence that sexual orientation can be exchanged. Furthermore, so-called treatments of homosexuality create a setting in which prejudice and discrimination flourish.”

Philip Hodson, a fellow of the BACP, said: “[BACP] is dedicated to social diversity, equality and inclusivity of treatment without sexual discrimination or judgmentalism of any kind, and it would be absurd to attempt to alter such fundamental aspects of personal identity as sexual orientation by counselling.

Sixth formers will no longer have to wait for their results before learning if they have secured a place at university under a shake-up of the examination system. Ministers want to move the timing of final school examinations and push the autumn university term back.

A government White Paper, to be published in the spring, will propose that university places would be granted based on actual results. [Revolutionary!] The deadline to the University and College Admissions Service, which falls tonight, would be moved back about six months.

Meanwhile the start of the university year would be delayed to until January under the reforms being drawn up by ministers. The reforms would not be introduced for at least two years to allow smooth transition.

David Willetts, the Universities Minister, said the current system needed to be “re-engineered”. “Instead of speculative applications based on possible A-Level grades everyone is dealing on how (a pupil) performs,” he told The Times. “It would involve some change in the time at which people do their exams. “Exam boards would have to move more rapidly and the process of people getting the application into Ucas would have to change.”

Under current systems, students receive conditional offers in the spring, which are not confirmed until A-Level grades are published in late August.

Mr Willetts said the proposals would be “floated” in the White Paper that would be published sometime in the spring.

Universities will likely be against the plans due to the high level of uncertainty they already face.

More students are turning to two-year university degrees in the economic downturn, figures show. The number of undergraduates gaining “foundation” degrees soared by almost a third last year, it was revealed. Figures showed 24,865 students completed a short degree course in 2010 compared with 18,850 in 2009 and just 9,275 five years ago.

The disclosure suggests that students are increasingly seeing foundation degrees – which take two years to complete and combine academic study with work-based tuition – as a cheaper alternative to traditional undergraduate courses. Many students also favour them because they can often lead directly to a job.

It follows claims from David Willets, the Universities Minister, that growing numbers of young people should seek alternatives to traditional three-year degrees. Setting out a vision of higher education under the Coalition Government, he called for more part-time courses, foundation degrees and courses with business placements. In a speech, he said: “There is more to university than Club 18-30 – going away from home for three years when you are 18.”

According to figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency, foundation degrees increased far more quickly last year than any other mode of study.

The number of students graduating with a foundation degree soared by 32 per cent, while conventional undergraduate degrees increased by five per cent and taught postgraduates rose by 11 per cent.

Britain’s know-alls got it wrong so something simple that got it right has to go

I can feel that sense of innocence and optimism as I walk around Britain’s last surviving prefab estate at Catford, South London. Plonked on top of pre-plumbed ­concrete slabs, these homes could be built in a day by teams of German and Italian prisoners-of-war who were in no hurry to return home, come the peace.

Yet, they are as much a part of British social history as Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. That is why English Heritage has fought to give them a Grade II listing, ensuring that future generations will at least retain some idea of what post-war life was like for a large chunk of the population.

But the Government has agreed to safeguard just six of them. The other 181 homes on this quiet, graffiti-free, non-Asbo estate are not being ­protected.

The owners are just weeks away from a council decision which could lead to almost all of the Excalibur estate being demolished. And for ­residents like Eddie O’Mahony, 90, who arrived in 1946 and never left, it is time for the biggest battle since, like Hector, he came home from the war.

For there is more at stake here than a warren of old bungalows and the ­memories of a few hundred Londoners. Here is a healthy riposte to every ­central planner who believes that society’s future lies in ­brutalist tower blocks.

Here is a reminder that the modernisers don’t always have the answers. It’s Forties 1, Sixties 0. We should not forget it.

For more than 150,000 homeless, bombed-out families across Britain, these two-bedroom prefabs were meant to be a merely temporary solution at the end of the war. But they were a godsend, too — detached houses with the then astonishing luxury of a garden, a bathroom and a separate indoor loo.

They were designed to last only ten years, just long enough to allow post-war Britain to build all those wonderful new council blocks for homecoming heroes like Hector Murdoch and his family.

As the Sixties unfolded, multi-storey concrete utopias were popping up all over Britain’s ­metropolitan skylines and most of the prefabs came down.

But as the years went on, the script went badly wrong. Many people found that they hated living in high-rise blocks, no matter how much the architects and the councils told them how lucky they were. In the end, the tower blocks started coming down again.

The Luftwaffe’s destruction of London during the Blitz forced housing authorities to follow the American fashion for prefabricated buildings. The 1944 Housing Act authorised the Government to spend up to £150 million on temporary houses in areas like Lewisham, where more than 1,500 homes had been destroyed during just the first year of conflict.

Cheap and quick to build, the prefab houses were popular with both councils and residents, not least because they were the first buildings many had lived in to have an indoor toilet.

It may seem strange by today’s standards but the prefabs quickly became synonymous with comfort and luxury. In fact, the war-time government was so proud of its new idea that it commissioned a prototype to appear at the Tate Gallery in London.

More than 150,000 of these ‘palaces for the people’ were mass produced in sections at a factory and assembled on sites around the country.

But the Excalibur Estate in Catford, consisting of 187 homes and even a prefab church, remains the largest to survive, despite the original tenants being told it would survive for little more than a decade. Yet, the remaining prefabs — and their grateful residents — stayed put.

And that is why so many are determined to stay here at Catford’s Excalibur estate — so-called because the roads have incongruous Arthurian names liked Baudwin and Pelinore.

It is not just about the buildings. It is about preserving a way of life which, they argue, is anything but prefabricated.

‘Round here, people still look after each other. Say “hello” to a stranger anywhere else and they think you’re a nutter. But not here. We’re old school,’ says retired building manager, Jim Blackender. ‘There’s a waiting list to live here. On the other estates, there’s a waiting list, too — to get out.’

But Excalibur is also a headache for the local council, a nose-thumbing contradiction of every rule in the modern Town Hall handbook.

Officially, these dwellings are damp and unfit for 21st-century human habitation. Some are — but only because they have been neglected by the council which owns all but 29 of them. Many others, cheerfully ­maintained by their owners and tenants, turn out to be dry, warm and much-loved.

They also sit on 12 valuable acres. And the council planners, along with their property developing partner, want to squeeze up to 400 new homes on the same patch.

This is why the suits at Lewisham ­Borough Council want to knock the whole thing down. In the Orwellian argot of the modern public sector, the ­prefabs must make way for ­something called the ‘Sustainable Community Strategy’.

Hence, a battalion of conservation groups including the Twentieth ­Century Society want to preserve as much of it as possible.

Students study the design and demography of the place. Film crews love it (they’ve done Only Fools And Horses here). When David Dimbleby was filming How We Built Britain, he came here. Eddie O’Mahony is proud to say that the presenter borrowed his loo.

The first thing I notice is the sky. I’d travelled for miles through the South-East London suburbs. Tower blocks and identical gabled terraces as far as the eye can see.

Then I turn on to the Excalibur estate and there is a sense of reaching open ground. That is simply because everything here is single-storey.

It would be patronising to call it pretty. Some bungalows have had love and attention devoted to them. Some have been given a mock-Tudor makeover with fake wooden beams and lattice windows. One has a couple of palm trees.

Others, however, are a tip, with free-range undergrowth and piles of junk. But there is a Hi-de-Hi holiday camp feel to it all. Almost everyone I meet loves it here.

‘This has gone way beyond being a prefab. It’s a bungalow,’ says road engineer Paul Newman, 47, who has lived here with his wife and two ­children for more than 16 years. ‘And where else are you going to find outdoor space like this in London for £60-a-week in rent?’

He opens the back door and there is a terrace ­leading out on to an immaculate lawn, surrounded by a sturdy fence. Paul has done it all himself. ‘I have spent thousands on this place. ­People ask why I bother, since I’m a council tenant, but I’m proud of this place. It’s like a country village in the summer. No one overlooks you and there’s no trouble. I call this a ­working-class Blackheath.’

It might not resemble that chi-chi Georgian suburb at the posh end of the borough. But both of them share a strong sense of civic pride. ‘If I won £15 million on the Lottery, I’d keep it just as it is,’ says Eddie O’Mahony.

He recalls the day his great friends Bob and Alice Allen in Pelinore Road had a visit from the Queen Mother in 1985 after a prize-winning performance in a local garden competition.

The Queen Mum, it seems, was a champion of the prefab, regularly dropping in on them during her regular tours of suburban London gardens. ‘She always said that as long as she was around, she would stand up for the prefab,’ says Jim Blackender, of the anti-demolition campaign.

It’s not picture postcard Britain. The names are Arthurian but it’s not exactly Tintagel. Yet, our history is here in these ingenious 20th century bungalows. They did not just provide homes fit for heroes. They have also put the high-rise arrogance of ­Britain’s modernists to shame.

For that alone, these stubborn monuments to the age of sacrifice should be allowed to stay.

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About jonjayray

I am former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.
The kneejerk response of the Green/Left to people who challenge them is to say that the challenger is in the pay of "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Pharma", "Exxon-Mobil", "The Pioneer Fund" or some other entity that they see, in their childish way, as a boogeyman. So I think it might be useful for me to point out that I have NEVER received one cent from anybody by way of support for what I write. As a retired person, I live entirely on my own investments. I do not work for anybody and I am not beholden to anybody

NOTE: I update this blog daily at roughly the same time every day (around midnight, Eastern Australian time or 2pm GMT) so if there are no recent posts long after the usual time for them to go up, it will almost certainly be due to one of the service interruptions that Wordpress (hosts of this blog) sometimes undergoes. In that case, however, all is not lost, as I will put up mirror sites of the blog if I become aware of the service outage. Go to either here or here to find another copy of what should be up on this blog. Note however that I no longer update the mirror sites daily. Service outages are as far as I am aware now too rare to justify that

Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.

As a socialist organization, it is no surprise that the NHS comes second only to the Nazis and Communists as a mass murderer. They have a truly Hitlerian contempt for "useless eaters". That the "useless eater" they are condemning to death might be your beloved mother or grandmother cuts no ice with them.
'

Some TERMINOLOGY for non-British readers: The British "A Level" exam is roughly equivalent to a U.S. High School diploma. Rather confusingly, you can get As, Bs or Cs in your "A Level" results. Entrance to the better universities normally requires several As in your "A Levels".

The BIGGEST confusion in British terminology, however, surrounds use of the term "public school". Traditionally, a public school was where people who were rich but not rich enough to afford private tutors sent their kids. So a British public school is a fee-paying school. It is what Americans or Australians would call a private school. Brits are however aware of the confusion this causes benighted non-Brits so these days often in the media use "Independent" where once they would have used "public". The term for a taxpayer-supported school in Britain is a State school, but there are several varieties of those. The most common (and deplorable) type of State school is a "Comprehensive"

Again for American readers: A "pensioner" is a retired person living on Social Security

Consensus. Margaret Thatcher in a 1981 speech: "For me, pragmatism is not enough. Nor is that fashionable word "consensus."... To me consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects—the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner "I stand for consensus"?

For my sins I have always loved G.B. Shaw's witty comment: "No Englishman can open his mouth without causing another Englishman to despise him". But Shaw was Irish, of course.

Britain has enormous claims to fame -- most of which the 1997 to 2010 Labour government did its best to destroy. But one glory no-one can destroy is British humour. And if you don't "get" British humour, your life is a dreary desert indeed. A superb sample here

Here is a link to my favourite British political speech since WWII. It is by Nigel Farage, the Leader of the UK Independence Party. He is referring to the Fascistic decision by the EU parliament to act as if their huge new "constitution" had been approved by the voters when in fact majorities in France, Ireland and Nederland (Holland) have rejected it at the ballot box. He points out that abuse is all they have to offer when he points out the impropriety of their actions.

Farage's expression, "A complete shower" is British slang meaning a group of completely incompetent and useless failures. It originated in the British armed forces where its unabbreviated version was "A complete shower of sh*t".

Britain appears to be the first country where anti-patriotism gained strong hold. Even Friedrich Engels (the co-worker with Karl Marx who died in 1895) was a furious German patriot. Much of the British elite were anti-patriotic from the early 20th century onwards, however. The "Cambridge spies" (from one of Britain's two most prestigious universities) are a good example of that. Although Cambridge appears to have been the chief nest of spies-to-be in Britain of the 30s, however, Oxford was also very Leftist. In 1933 (9th Feb.) the Oxford Union debated the motion: "This House will in no circumstances fight for King and Country". The motion was overwhelmingly carried (275 to 153).

I have an abiding fascination with the Church of England. It is the sort of fascination one might have for a once-distinguished elderly relative who has gone bad and become a slave to the bottle. But nothing I can say about the C of E (which these days seems to stand for The Church of the Environment) could surpass what the whole of English literature says of it -- which ranges from seeing it as a collection of nincompoops and incompetents to seeing it as comprised of evil hypocrites. Yet its 39 "Articles of Religion" of 1562 are an abiding and eloquent statement of Protestant faith. But I guess that 1562 is a long time ago.

The intellectual Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) could well have been thinking of modern Britain when he said: "The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."

On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.

I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the RD are still sending mailouts to my 1950s address

The kneejerk response of the Green/Left to people who challenge them is to say that the challenger is in the pay of "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Pharma", "Exxon-Mobil", "The Pioneer Fund" or some other entity that they see, in their childish way, as a boogeyman. So I think it might be useful for me to point out that I have NEVER received one cent from anybody by way of support for what I write. As a retired person, I live entirely on my own investments. I do not work for anybody and I am not beholden to anybody. And I have NO investments in oil companies, mining companies or "Big Pharma"

UPDATE: Despite my (statistical) aversion to mining stocks, I have recently bought a few shares in BHP -- the world's biggest miner, I gather. I run the grave risk of becoming a speaker of famous last words for saying this but I suspect that BHP is now so big as to be largely immune from the risks that plague most mining companies. I also know of no issue affecting BHP where my writings would have any relevance. The Left seem to have a visceral hatred of miners. I have never quite figured out why.

I am an army man. Although my service in the Australian army was chiefly noted for its un-notability, I DID join voluntarily in the Vietnam era, I DID reach the rank of Sergeant, and I DID volunteer for a posting in Vietnam. So I think I may be forgiven for saying something that most army men think but which most don't say because they think it is too obvious: The profession of arms is the noblest profession of all because it is the only profession where you offer to lay down your life in performing your duties. Our men fought so that people could say and think what they like but I myself always treat military men with great respect -- respect which in my view is simply their due.

Although I have been an atheist for all my adult life, I have no hesitation in saying that the single book which has influenced me most is the New Testament. And my Scripture blog will show that I know whereof I speak.

Many people hunger and thirst after righteousness. Some find it in the hatreds of the Left. Others find it in the love of Christ. I don't hunger and thirst after righteousness at all. I hunger and thirst after truth. How old-fashioned can you get?

My academic background

My full name is Dr. John Joseph RAY. I am a former university teacher aged 65 at the time of writing in 2009. I was born of Australian pioneer stock in 1943 at Innisfail in the State of Queensland in Australia. I trace my ancestry wholly to the British Isles. After an early education at Innisfail State Rural School and Cairns State High School, I taught myself for matriculation. I took my B.A. in Psychology from the University of Queensland in Brisbane. I then moved to Sydney (in New South Wales, Australia) and took my M.A. in psychology from the University of Sydney in 1969 and my Ph.D. from the School of Behavioural Sciences at Macquarie University in 1974. I first tutored in psychology at Macquarie University and then taught sociology at the University of NSW. My doctorate is in psychology but I taught mainly sociology in my 14 years as a university teacher. In High Schools I taught economics. I have taught in both traditional and "progressive" (low discipline) High Schools. Fuller biographical notes here